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It is a great pleasure to announce the 2015 Wiley Prize for the best papers published in Child Abuse Review.  Jane Appleton and I have selected three papers, published between 2011 and 2014 which we believe are all outstanding papers, reflecting innovative thinking and relevance to practitioners.  The quality of papers published in the journal is always very high, so selecting three out of all those published isn’t easy.

The three winning papers are:

Kirsten Stalker and Katherine McArthur.  Child abuse, child protection and disabled children: a review of recent research  Child Abuse Review Volume 21, Issue 1, January/February 2012, Pages: 24–40

Vic Tuck.  Resistant Parents and Child Protection: Knowledge Base, Pointers for Practice and Implications for Policy  Child Abuse Review Volume 22, Issue 1, January/February 2013, Pages: 5–19

Susan Alderson, Nicole Westmarland and Liz Kelly.  The Need for Accountability to, and Support for, Children of Men on Domestic Violence Perpetrator Programmes  Child Abuse Review Volume 22, Issue 3, May/June 2013, Pages: 182–193,

Placing the child at the centre of care requires professionals and organisations to adopt a position that recognises and responds to the child or young person’s best interests (Appleton, Powell and Coombes, 2014, unpublished report to NSPCC). As Munro (2011a, 2011b; p6) stated in her review of child protection, the child protection system needs to focus not on procedural aspects and bureaucratic systems, but on ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘checking whether children and young people are being helped’. This was the message from recent research that highlighted that a child’s missed health care appointment should be regarded as ‘a window of opportunity for intervention, to keep the child at the centre of care, and safe and well ’ (Appleton et al., 2014, unpublished report to NSPCC; p55). Keeping the child at the centre of care is crucially important in all frontline work with children and families.

Keeping the child at the centre of care is a theme in the latest issue of Child Abuse Review, now available online.

We feature an excellent paper by Brigid Daniel considering why we have made neglect so complicated and offering some fresh perspectives on how we can notice and help the neglected child, as well as research on child welfare, protecting unborn and newborn babies, shaken baby syndrome prevention in Turkey, engaging fathers, and professionals dealing with complexity.

For the full contents list, and to download any of the papers, click here

The teaching of Jesus shapes who we are. But it’s just as true to say that who we are shapes what we make of the teaching of Jesus. Who Peter Sidebotham is — a loving parent and a paediatrician dealing daily with suffering children — has fashioned his understanding of what it means to be a child of God. Who he is, father and beloved physician, is his personal imprint on every page of what is, quibbles notwithstanding, an engaging and perceptive little book.

The Church Times have published the following review of Growing up to be a child:

Growing Up to Be a Child

Peter Sidebotham

Westbow Press £9.14

(978-1-4908-4067-3)

Church Times Bookshop £8.23

Reviewed by The Revd Dr John Pridmore, a former Rector of Hackney in East London Continue reading “Childhood pattern – a book review in the Church Times”

As we enter the fifth week in Lent, we journey with Jesus’ mother, Mary – with her struggles to understand and stand with her son; in her discovery of her own vocation, perhaps wondering where and what that is; in her growing recognition and acceptance of her son’s vocation.

Let us accept the different path of others.

Let us not compare or envy.

Let us not control a parent, child or colleague … instead,

Let’s admire the place they have in the world;

Let them simply be

Click here to go to this week’s Lent meditations

With great skill and energy we have ignored the state of the human heart.

With politics and economics we have denied the heart’s needs.

With eloquence, wit and reason we have belittled the heart’s wisdom.

With sophistication and style with science and technology,

we have drowned out the voice of the human soul.

The primitive voice, the innocent voice. The truth.

We cannot hear our heart’s truth, and thus

we have betrayed and belittled ourselves and pledged madness to our children.

With skill and pride we have made for ourselves an unhappy society.

God be with us.

I have been totally gripped this week with the truth captured within Michael Leunig’s prayer and Banksy’s artwork.

How about a commitment to rediscovering our heart’s truth, and passing this on to our children and our society?

Going simply with our culture